About the Authors

Kelvin Li

Affiliation J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America

Monika Bihan

Affiliation J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America

Shibu Yooseph

Affiliation J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America

Barbara A. Methé

bmethe@jcvi.org

Affiliation J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KL SY MB BAM. Performed the experiments: KL SY MB BAM. Analyzed the data: KL SY MB BAM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KL SY MB BAM. Wrote the paper: KL BAM. Developed τ statistic: KL.